


Puppy Dogged Does It

by misura



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Assassins & Hitmen, Clint Barton Flirts, Community: avland, F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-07-22
Packaged: 2017-12-31 08:39:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1029625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The thing is: he's absolutely, certifiably crazy.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>The other thing is: she likes him almost as much as he imagines he likes her.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Puppy Dogged Does It

**Author's Note:**

> written for a challenge requiring one to write a piece of in between 200 and 800 words, using all of the following:
> 
> fire / information / heart / balloon / candy / yells OR yelled / wedding / runs OR ran / hospital / extraordinary / biscuits / karaoke

Everything changes after Budapest.

"Yo, Nat. You ever kill anyone by hitting them over the head with a roll of biscuits?"

He's not the first guy who's ever shortened her name to a mono-syllable. He's not even the first guy she's ever given her phone number.

" _Da_ ," she says, wondering where he is, and what he's doing, and who he's doing it to.

"Damn," Clint says. "I thought for sure I was going to be the first."

 

The thing is: he's absolutely, certifiably crazy.

The other thing is: she likes him almost as much as he imagines he likes her.

 

She kills a man by poisoning his sushi, then has his body taken care of by an old friend who's good enough at his job that nobody else in the restaurant notices anything amiss.

Clint fires an arrow through someone's eye socket from the fourteenth floor, causing a major traffic jam and an emergency news bulletin, warning office workers everywhere to be on the alert for tall, dark-haired Westerners attempting to steal their water bottles and office supplies.

Tokyo is a large city; inevitably, they run into each other in the subway.

"We should do karaoke," he tells her, in extraordinary poor Japanese that clearly marks him as an American. "It'll be fun. I'm a great singer."

"Your passport has been eaten by goats," she tells him, in flawless Czech.

"Never heard of that song, but I'd love to hear you sing it," he replies, in the same language.

 

He sings to her about a woman who has set his heart on fire.

She pays a patron at the bar to sing a classic from the eighties, about a girl who is 'telling all her secrets in a wonderful balloon'.

(It doesn't make any sense, is her point.)

 

"For your information, there were, like, ten guys, and they all looked like gorillas."

Clint looks out of place in a hospital bed. Vulnerable. There are too many entry points, not enough security measures. There's a porn magazine and a half-eaten bag of candy lying on the nightstand.

"You should have brought some bananas."

"Funny," he says. "Hey, didn't you even get me a fruits basket or something? I'm hurt."

 

They don't talk about Budapest.

They don't talk about not talking about Budapest.

(Some things don't have to make sense. They simply are.)

 

"I shot a guy at a wedding," Clint says. "Quick and clean, one arrow. Everybody yelled, and I ran like hell."

"That made you look rather suspicious, didn't it?"

Clint looks half-annoyed and half-wounded. "Which part about my shooting him do you think made me look like I was just an innocent bystander?"

Natasha shrugs.

"I didn't even get a slice of the wedding cake," Clint says. "I bet they just threw it out, after. Complete waste. People ought to be more respectful of good food. You should let me buy you dinner some time."

"I might poison you," Natasha says.

"I might be all right with that," Clint says. "Provided you only do it as a showing-off sort of thing and give me the antidote right after. So that's a date, then? Are you free tomorrow night?"


End file.
